Health

The Guardian -  With subsidies for Affordable Care Act (ACA) health insurance set to expire, Americans who rely on them will probably switch to plans with lower monthly premiums and high deductibles or decide not to purchase any coverage, which will have a serious and damaging impact on the entire sector, according to healthcare policy experts.

The average amount ACA plan enrollees pay annually for premiums is estimated to more than double, from an average of $888 this year to $1,904 in 2026, according to a KFF analysis.

That will then have economic downstream effects, including for rural hospitals and people who have employer-sponsored health insurance, according to the experts.

With “a significant portion of people dropping their marketplace coverage and being uninsured, it doesn’t just impact them, it impacts everyone”, said Emma Wager, a senior policy analyst for KFF’s program on the Affordable Care Act (ACA).

In 2021, during the Covid-19 pandemic, Congress passed legislation to extend eligibility for ACA health insurance subsidies and increased the amount of financial assistance available to people who were already eligible for subsidies, which caused a dramatic increase in how many people enrolled in coverage through the healthcare marketplace.

Those premium tax credits are set to expire at the end of the year, despite a push from Democratic lawmakers and a small minority of Republicans to extend them for three years. On Thursday, legislation to preserve the credits failed to clear the 60-vote hurdle needed to pass in the Senate